Watson said the ACA, commonly known as ObamaCare, is not health care reform but insurance reform that has done little to help control care costs. The primary driver of rising health care costs are people making unhealthy choices and failing to take preventive care of themselves which increases end-of-life care expenses, Watson said.

"I don’t think the Affordable Care Act has done anything to address those issues," Watson said. "It does not address the personal responsibility piece of what’s going on from a cost perspective with health care."

Tennessee hospitals are estimated to take a $5.6 billion reduction in Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement payments in the next 10 years. MRMC will lose $10.7 million per year during the next 10 years, Marshall Medical Center will lose $257, 000 and Wayne Medical Center is estimated to have its payments reduced by $800,000, Watson said.

Medicare is out of funding, but the federal government must continue to pay for claims, he said.

"(The ACA) is not about doing anything that helps the ordinary citizen of the United States," Watson said. "It’s about shoring up a system that is financially broke."

Sanders said health insurance costs are increased because of how often people use it. Health insurance utilization can have unlimited consumption, he said.

"If you wanted to, you could go to the doctor every day and you can take as many medications as someone would prescribe you, and that’s not the case in any other kind of insurance," Sanders said.

America has health issues, not a health-system problem, he said. In 1985, no state had an obesity rate of more than 15 percent. By 2005, no state had an obesity rate of less than 15 percent, he said.

From an insurer perspective, the ACA takes away people’s incentives to buy insurance because the preexisting condition mandates were removed, Sanders said. Insurers underwriting abilities are removed, and the plans make Americans pay for things they may not need, including men paying for maternity coverage, he said.

From an employer perspective, Bryant said businesses are footing the bill to fix the health care system and paying for employees who are making poor health choices, causing premiums to increase.

KDS’ premiums have more than doubled in the last 12 years, she said.

The ACA mandates that 30 hours a week is considered full time. KDS has staff that work 40-hour weeks and others who clock 28 hours, Bryant said. KDS might have to adjust its work schedules because the company cannot afford to pay an additional $230 per month for its 40 part-time employees who might get 30 hours of work, she said.

The additional $250 could take money away from the school’s mission of helping special needs, Bryant said.

"It puts employers as making decisions that they don’t want to make that are going to affect employees," she said. "At the end of the day, if I only have so many dollars to hand out, I have to choose where I am going to hand those dollars out."

Though the panel’s tone was mostly critical of the ACA, Watson and Sanders offered some positives about the reforms Wednesday.

Watson said there are cases of patients getting insurance that may not have been able to purchase it otherwise. Some people with preexisting conditions can now receive health insurance under the ACA, he said.

Sanders said the ACA made Medicare reimbursements to individual providers public, which increases transparency in medical billing.

Low income citizens on Medicaid will now have access to more "robust" medical plans because of government subsidies offered in the health care exchanges, Sanders said.